Torrents are suddenly allowed in Steam chat again. No disappearing messages, no block pages. At worst, you'll get a warning that you're venturing beyond Steam's gilded grayblue cage. Valve has not explained why they made this sudden about-face after their recent spat of arbitrary blocks. Welp. As you were, then. »2/17/15 3:21pm 2/17/15 3:21pm

This is curious. Recently Steam users (myself included, after a few tests) discovered that certain torrent links no longer work in Steam chat. Some have even reported messages disappearing altogether. Here's the thing, though: it only applies to some popular torrent sites, but not others like The Pirate Bay. »2/16/15 7:24pm 2/16/15 7:24pm

Online piracy is a problem for copyright holders, there's no question there. However, Japan's latest ad campaign against the illegal uploading of copyrighted materials has been causing a bit of a stir due to its apparent demonization of Japanese otaku in one of the ads. »2/05/15 5:00am 2/05/15 5:00am

There's Pokémon Crystal, the third game in the second generation of Pokémon games. And then there's Pokémon Vietnamese Crystal, the bootleg version of the game with mistranslations. There's a difference.»1/28/15 3:00pm 1/28/15 3:00pm

Marketing, timing and the PS2 all played a big part, but one of the other reasons cited in the untimely demise of the Dreamcast was the ease with which games could be pirated. That may be, but as Michael Gapper reminds us, it was also one of the best things about the system. »9/02/14 9:00pm 9/02/14 9:00pm

"I don't want to go to bed at night thinking I've ruined thousands of people's fun," one of the two men who's cracked open the code for the Wii U's biggest game told me this week. I was confused. »8/15/14 10:00am 8/15/14 10:00am

When fighting game fan "Dan Hibiki" got a strange message while playing Skullgirls, he did what anyone with a Twitter account might do: he contacted the game developers to ask what was going on. Little did he know that the message, pictured below, was something that only those who pirated the game could see. »7/09/14 4:00pm 7/09/14 4:00pm

Torrenting may be a practice dominated by the sharing of movies, tv shows, music, porn and games, but the oldest active torrent on the internet is none of those things. »3/31/14 10:00pm 3/31/14 10:00pm

Torrent trackers The Pirate Bay have had the authorities tightening the noose around their operations for years now, but this week things have taken a twist for the absurd/awesome. »12/10/13 10:30pm 12/10/13 10:30pm

Vitali Kirpu and Alex Poysky, the developers behind Pixel Piracy, have "pirated" a copy of their own game, offering a free torrent download on their site. Because if you can't beat 'em, appeal to their sense of decency. »12/03/13 2:00am 12/03/13 2:00am

Last year's version of divorce simulator Football Manager contained an interesting hidden secret: there was code inside that let the developers track the IP of everybody who pirated a copy of the game. »11/14/13 12:00am 11/14/13 12:00am

About the only thing I can see that's wrong with this diabolical plot is the fact suckers have to download an 18GB torrent before the malware is unleashed. Otherwise, there's a bogus torrent of Grand Theft Auto V's nonexistent PC version that's claimed several victims of late. »10/22/13 9:40am 10/22/13 9:40am